Jimmy Eat World to play at the Wellmont Theater in Montclair

Dan SchlesDon't you worry what the bitter hearts are going to say: Jimmy Eat World hit the streets.

It happens almost exactly a minute into "Evidence," a standout track from "Invented," Jimmy Eat World’s seventh album. As effortlessly as switching on a light, a curtain of gorgeous, pulverizing distortion descends upon the song. What began as a rudimentary two-chord groove explodes into a celebration of maximalist rock power.

"That’s all about the bass guitar," says drummer and founding member Zach Lind, who has been playing with Jimmy Eat World since the early ’90s. "It’s just gnarly."

Lind has something to do with it, too. Jimmy Eat World goes from zero to 60 as fast as any power-pop band in America, and it’s the drummer with his foot on the accelerator. He never strikes his snare with anything short of complete conviction.

"It took us awhile to get that song right," says Lind. "We kept pushing for that part to feel like you’re getting hit in the head with a cinder block. It had to have a weight to it. The dynamic shift really is the hook of the song. ‘Evidence’ would wilt if it didn’t hit you hard."

It’s no exaggeration to say that thousands of bands have chased the distinctive Jimmy Eat World punch in the studio. "The Middle," the band’s defiantly optimistic 2001 hit from "Bleed American," became a template for musicians looking to wed the raw power of punk rock guitar with the sweetness of catchy pop songwriting. No band does it better, or with more sincerity, than Jimmy Eat World.

"I think a lot of it is just how Jim Adkins and Tom Linton sound when they’re playing together. Jim has a brighter guitar, and that’s the top end, and Tom’s guitar tends to be dirtier and wider-sounding, and that fills things out. It’s not like we’re overdubbing sound or adding tons of guitars. That just makes things sound smaller."

Lind’s drumming has been influential, too: His parts on songs such as "Lucky Denver Mint" and "Sweetness" are tricky, syncopated and nearly martial in their urgency. At the band’s Starland Ballroom show in September, Lind had the crowd jumping from his first down stroke; by the time the band returned for its final encore, the dance floor was a swirl of activity.

Expect more motion when Jimmy Eat World takes the stage of the Wellmont Theater in Montclair tonight. As they have throughout the "Invented" tour, they will play songs from throughout their career, including a version of "Goodbye Sky Harbor," the epic, ethereal track that closes their "Clarity" album.

"Clarity," the Arizona-based band’s third set, is now recognized as one of the landmark releases of the late ’90s — the album that brought "emo," then just an underground movement of loosely affiliated bands, to mainstream attention.

It was not, however, a hit, and the members of Jimmy Eat World aren’t sure why its music has continued to resonate so strongly.

"It wasn’t like we were burning up the charts or anything," says Lind. "But it had more of a direction than the albums that preceded it. It was the first one where we really felt that we knew what we were doing.

"It helped us get a following."

It also inaugurated the classic Jimmy Eat World sound. Working with producer Mark Trombino, the band developed a twin guitar attack to support Adkins’ soul-searching lyrics and pure-voiced delivery. For "Bleed American," the band’s follow-up release, Trombino streamlined the sound, presenting Jimmy Eat World as a ferocious modern rock band, waving desperate optimism like a battle flag. "Bleed American" made Jimmy Eat World one of the most popular alternative rock bands in the nation; having accomplished this, the band and Trombino parted ways.

Until last year, when Jimmy Eat World brought their producer back.

"When we started making ‘Invented,’ " said Lind, "we really wanted to rely on our own instinct. We wanted the freedom to work by ourselves. But after a while, we knew we had to find a fifth opinion. We struggled to find that person, until we came to the realization that Mark was the one guy we knew who could do what needed to be done."

The band and its producer were rarely in the same place. Jimmy Eat World sent files it had recorded in Tempe, Ariz., to Trombino in California, who would mix them and send them back. The remote collaboration was a success: "Invented" feels like a tight summary of the band’s journey, and a reminder of its power and mastery of sound.

"We typically don’t leave the studio until we’ve achieved everything we wanted," says Lind. "We can’t control what the industry does or what the critics say, but we think we made the best record that we can possibly make, and that’s all we can ask ourselves to do."